Jay Leno's tearful goodbye: It's just been incredible'

Jay Leno has said goodbye to “The Tonight Show” before, but not like this. The comedian became tearful and choked up Thursday as he concluded what he called the “greatest 22 years of my life.”

“I am the luckiest guy in the world. This is tricky,” said the emotional Leno, stepping down for the second and presumably last time as host of TV’s venerable late-night program. Jimmy Fallon takes over “Tonight” in New York on Feb. 17.

Leno shared that he’d lost his mother the first year he became “Tonight” host, his dad the second and then his brother.

“And after that I was pretty much out of family. And the folks here became my family,” he said of the crew and staff of “Tonight.”

It was a tender finish to a farewell show that was mostly aiming for laughs, with traditional monologue jokes, clips from old shows and a wild assortment of celebrities helping to see Leno off.